


Mourn

by bardofmnemosyne (jadedmusings)



Series: Savitry [3]
Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Angst, Death Knight, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-17
Updated: 2011-11-17
Packaged: 2017-10-26 04:55:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/278928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadedmusings/pseuds/bardofmnemosyne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Savitry confronts the uncomfortable truths of existence among the living.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mourn

**Author's Note:**

> Follow up to ["A Miracle in the Whispering Forest."](http://archiveofourown.org/works/226872)

For the living, the word dream was synonymous with hope. Hope for the future, for love, for peace. The dead can only remember what it was to live, to have a heart beating in their chests, to feel the sun warm their skin. The dead did not dream, they mourned. In sleep, the remains of their lives were thrown in stark relief against the reality of an existence among the still living. Perhaps this, Savitry thought, was why so many of her un-dead brethren chose to forgo sleep. That it wasn’t an act vital to their continued survival was a convenient, polite excuse to quell the unease of the living around them. It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t wholly true either.

 _Our acceptance among them is already imperiled by the very nature of our creation. We are evil, unnatural things to them, and perhaps they are right in that. Only our curious sense of self-preservation keeps us from admitting the truth: We resent the living._

The speech replayed in her mind as it had a thousand times since her hard won freedom from Arthas. She couldn’t recall the name or the face of the man who spoke it, but somehow it seemed the words were more important than the speaker.

Andor roused briefly in his sleep and rolled onto his side, the noise catching Savitry’s attention and pulling her out of her contemplative state. She watched his lips move and heard him mumble an incoherent phrase followed by a soft snore. His eyes fluttered, rapid eye movement signaling the beginning of a dream. No doubt he’d tell her what the dream involved come sunrise, and once more he’d inquire as to whether or not she’d dreamed too.

Savitry snatched up the tree limb next to her and used it to stoke the campfire. She poked and shifted the embers with more force than was necessary, a behavior she would have once connected to annoyance or anger. Now she only knew it helped divert her thoughts from confusing subjects. The trouble was that everything about Andor confused her.

The flames flared brightly for a moment and then returned to their previous height. She withdrew her impromptu poker and set it down before she stirred the fire enough to wake her husband.

Husband. The word sounded strange and foreign in her head. Once upon a time it had meant something to name Andor her husband, to share his bed, but like love, joy, sorrow, and pain, it had become just another word from a previous life. When all was said and done, it rang hollow, devoid of any meaning or attachment in her current state. Savitry knew whatever had bonded them in life had not survived death. On some level, Andor knew that too, but he actively avoided the truth.

“Savitry,” Andor murmured in a voice thick with sleep. One corner of his mouth moved upward in a slack smile and his eyelids fluttered rapidly. His sleeping furs shifted, falling back to expose one shoulder.

An image flashed in her mind. A late summer morning spent in bed. Laughter fading into moans as flesh pressed against flesh, the heat of him almost as warm as that of the sunlight streaming through the window.

Gasping, Savitry turned away and pushed to her feet. With a slight distance from the fire, the chill of an early winter breeze helped free her from the memory’s hold. It wasn’t that the cold cleared her head; rather it was the absence of the heat which reminded her of what she was. Reminded her the memory could only ever be a memory. Her body no long warmed at Andor’s touch, her blood did not rise to the surface of her skin from intimate whispers. In fact, since their night in the Whispering Forest, he’d recoiled whenever he touched her. In the absence of the magic of those dragons, her flesh was cold and unresponsive. Dead.

Her fists clenched at her sides, she turned back to look at Andor still deep in slumber. A fine covering of hoarfrost formed over the backs of her hands, spreading up to her forearms. Even from a few feet away she could feel the warmth of life emanating from his form, could hear his heart beating within his breast. Her lips curled back from her teeth in a silent, unnatural snarl.

 _We resent the living._

The ground beneath her boots crunched noisily as she went to stand over him. He did not stir, still trusting her to warn him of danger while he rested, trusting her to protect him. Would he sleep so soundly, she wondered, if he knew the sort of monster she was? Did his memories of her in life cloud his judgment so much that he left himself vulnerable?

“Do you understand,” she whispered, “how hard it is to share a life with another when you have no life left to share? How much I hate you for asking me to try?” Andor snorted softly and rolled onto his back in answer, his mouth partially open.

Savitry closed her eyes and shook her head. “I suppose not,” she said, flexing the fingers of one hand to rid it of the frost. She reached down to grab the edges of the fur covering him and tugged it up to cover his chest.

 _I do not resent you,_ she thought as she returned to her seat next to the fire. _I grieve for the life taken from me. I mourn for us and what we’ll never have._

To the east, the horizon had begun to lighten and overhead a flock of bats swam through the air, racing to return home before the sun fully emerged. Andor would wake soon, eager to share his dreams with her.

And Savitry would mourn.


End file.
